


Baby I'll be your happy ending

by crayyyonn



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: AU, M/M, Pre-Slash, crying!clint, meet cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2018-03-02 05:38:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2801567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crayyyonn/pseuds/crayyyonn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the Tumblr prompt "consider the 'I work at the movie theater and I'm cleaning up after the movie is over and you're the only person left because you're ugly crying with popcorn over your lap' AU".</p>
            </blockquote>





	Baby I'll be your happy ending

Phil stands by the door, patiently waiting for the last of the stragglers to leave the theater. It’s the final screening of the day, and he cannot wait to head home and take the longest, hottest, most environmentally unfriendly shower to wash off the smell of popcorn and nachos that has undoubtedly latched onto his hair and clothes. He sighs. It’s been a long double shift.

Once it seems like everyone has left, Phil enters through the back, glancing critically over the row of seats. It isn’t too dirty from what he can tell, and Phil thanks the heavens that it’s 2am on a Thursday morning. He hates the weekend crowds the most--they nearly always come with floors littered with bits of popcorn and chip dust and spilled drinks, which were a bitch to clean up.

Not that the late night crowd were angels, either. They are mostly drunk, rowdy, and less conscientious about picking up after themselves. And while empty chip bags and buttery tubs are well within Phil’s job description, used condoms are decidedly not.

Phil’s picked up a lot more of those than he should have to.

Grimacing at the unpleasant memory, Phil grabs his broom and trash bag, beginning to work methodically through the rows. There’s a candy bar wrapper here and there, and half empty disposable cups in the cup holders, which he makes fast work of. He sneaks a glance at his watch as he moves down the front of the theater. If he’s quick, he can even stop by the diner to pick up a coffee and sandwich. That should power him through a couple of hours of essay writing. Regardless of how many days it is to Christmas, his term paper isn't going to write itself.

He’s nearly at the middle section when he hears it, a soft whine. His immediate thought is that someone had propped the doors open they took out the trash again, allowing a stray to slip in. That is quickly proven wrong when the whine is followed by sniffling, and then a very human cough. Not a cat, then.

“Hello?” Phil calls out, looking around for the source of the sound.

He finally spots it, a figure hunched over in a seat in the leftmost column, about a third of the way from the screen. Phil’s not surprised he didn’t see him when he first came in. The figure has slid down so far in the seat that even now, Phil can barely make out a head.

He makes his way over, picking up bits and pieces of trash when he comes across them. As he nears, the figure shifts, and he realizes to his surprise that it’s a man.

A very well built man, if the way those arms are threatening to burst out of the muscle tee are anything to go by.

“Excuse me, sir?” Phil asks, stopping at the aisle next to him.

The man lifts his head from where it was buried in his knees, and Phil feels his heart skip a beat.

He's gorgeous.

Okay, his face is puffy and blotchy and his nose is violently red, but those eyes, damn. They’re the most fascinating shade of aquamarine Phil has ever seen, shifting endlessly between blues and greens. The tears in them only serve to make them sparkle under the harsh fluorescent lights of the--

Wait a minute, Phil backtracks. Tears?

He moves closer to the man, and upon closer inspection, notices the dried tear tracks on his cheeks.

“Sir, are you all right?” Phil asks, concerned.

The man looks blankly up at Phil for a few moments. Then his lower lip wobbles. Sniffing pathetically, he croaks out, “No.”

As yet another tear slips from the man’s (breathtaking, mesmerizing, ought-to-be-illegal) eyes, Phil feels an impending sense of panic. At no point in his brusque five-minute training when he first walked in to apply for a job had he been drilled on handling a sobbing adult in the small hours of the morning.

“Uh.” The trash bag rustles in his grip. “Do you want to talk about it?”

The man shakes his head disconsolately. “No.”

“All right then.” Phil nods, hesitant. “I’ll just--”

“It’s just! Why couldn’t they stay together? Why did he have to die? They’ve already been through so much, why can’t they just have a happily ever after? Why is life so unfair, why?”

Taken aback by the sudden tirade, Phil blinks. Then, taking a deep breath, he gingerly reaches out with one hand to pat the man on his toned (and fuck is it toned) arm.

“There, there.”

He meant it to be comforting and not awkward, really he did.

The man dissolves into fresh, wracking sobs, making Phil wince. Hoping it’s not too forward, he slides his hand over the ball of the man’s shoulder, trying to soothe him. 

He tries really hard to ignore the thrilling heat emanating from beneath the threadbare fabric.

Finally, between sniffles, the man says, “I just wanted them to be _happy_. Real life’s already so fucking hard, why couldn’t they just give us a happy ending? Why must they depress us more, goddamnit.” Angrily, he swipes the tears away from his eyes. “I fucking hate this movie.”

Phil tries to remember what had been showing and vaguely recalls a poster with a couple and what seems like a farmhouse in the background. It must be that new romance movie the critics have been raving about, then, the one proclaimed to be the ‘love of a lifetime’. He’s been meaning to watch it one of these days, if only to see what the hype is about, because hey, nothing wrong with a nice romance to set the tone for the Christmas season. Especially when he doesn’t have much going for him on the romantic front. But now that he knows it doesn’t end happy, he doesn’t know if he wants to.

“Not all movies can have a happy ending, I guess. Like life,” he says. He thinks his tone is suitably philosophical, if a little wistful.

At that, the tears flow faster, and the man glares balefully at Phil. The animosity in his eyes is undercut by the pitiful sniffling, though, and then a loud honking sound when he blows his nose into a wad of tissues he produces out of nowhere.

Phil can’t help it, he laughs, then raises a hand in an attempt to deflect the glower the man shoots him in response. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have laughed, I’m sorry.”

Looking not the slightest bit mollified, the man just blows his nose again, half-full bucket wobbling dangerously in his lap. His lips are turned down in a pout. Coupled with the red rimming his eyes, he looks so charmingly vulnerable all Phil wants to do is make him hot cocoa, wrap him up in a blanket, and snuggle.

Suddenly shy, he clears his throat. “Tell you what, let me finish up here, and I’ll buy you a coffee to make up for it?” He smiles, self-conscious, when the man slides a suspicious glance at him, fighting the urge to fidget. “I mean, it’s cool if you don’t want to, I was just thinking--”

“Make that a peppermint mocha and it’s a date,” the man cuts in.

“--so really, even if…” Phil pauses. “Did you say date?”

Rubbing his nose, the man stands. “When a cute guy says he’ll buy me coffee, hell yeah it’s a date.”

The wink is hampered slightly by the puffiness around his eyes, but it's audaciously charming all the same, and Phil feels himself blush scarlet. _Cute_.

"Yeah, okay." Biting his lips against a grin, he takes the popcorn bucket from the man and drops it in his trash bag. "I'm Phil, by the way."

"Clint," the man says easily.

They slip into a comfortable silence as Clint helps Phil with the rest of the clear up. Thankfully, there isn't much left, with the small late night crowd. They finish soon enough, and as Clint shrugs on his jacket, Phil takes a second to mourn the loss of those arms.

Then he has to tamp down the surge of arousal at the way Clint looks in the worn old leather.

"So, coffee?" he asks when they finally step outside the movie theater. It's just begun to snow, and he shivers a little under his scarf and coat.

A hand catches his, drawing it up and into a warm pocket. Blinking, Phil looks up at Clint, who has his gaze fixed straight ahead. His cheeks are flushed from the crying and the cold, but there's a smile playing at his lips.

"Come on, I know a place."


End file.
